The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 41

"You, Groder!" said Otto.

"I have no more cord," growled Michael, as he tied the knots viciously about my wrists.

Something rattled lightly on the ground. 'Twas the girdle of the Countess, with the fan attached to the end of it.

Groder plucked the fan off, struck my heels from under me, and bound the girdle round and round my ankles until they jarred together and I felt the bones cracking.

Otto took his knee from my chest, and the two men went back to their former stations by the door.

Father Spaur came over to where I lay, rubbing his hands gently together.

"Really, really!" said he in a silky voice, "so the c.o.c.katoo has been caged after all."

The words, recalling that morning in London when first I allowed myself to take heart in my hopes, so stung me that, tied as I was, I struggled on to my feet, and so stood tottering. Father Spaur drew back a pace and glanced quickly about him.

"Michael!" he called. But the next instant I fell heavily forward upon his breast. He burst into a loud laugh of relief, and flung me back upon the settle.

I looked towards Ilga.

"What have you not told him?" I asked.

"Nothing!" she said coldly. "I, at all events, had nothing to conceal."

She motioned Father Spaur to fall back. Otto and Groder picked up their swords. Father Spaur unlatched the door, rubbed out the torch upon the boards, and one after another they stepped from the pavilion.

Ilga followed last, but she did not turn her head as she went out.

Through the open doorway I could see the shadows dancing on the terrace, I could hear the music pouring from the Castle in a lilting measure. The door closed, the pavilion became black once more, and I heard their footsteps recede across the pavement and grow silent upon the gra.s.s.

CHAPTER XX.

IN THE PAVILION. COUNTESS LUKSTEIN EXPLAINS.

Of the horror which the next two hours brought to me, I find it difficult to speak, even at this distance of time. 'Twas not the fear of what might be in store for me that oppressed my mind, though G.o.d knows I do not say this to make a boast of it; for doubtless some fear upon that score would have argued me a better man; but in truth I barely sent a thought that way. The savour of life had become brine upon my lips, and I cared little what became of me, so that the ending was quick.

For the moment the door closed I was filled with an appalling sense of loneliness and isolation. Heart and brain it seized and possessed me.

'Twas the closing of a door upon all the hopes which had chattered and laughed and nestled at my heart for so long; and into such a vacancy of mind did I fall, that I did not trouble to speculate upon the nature of the story which Countess Lukstein believed to be true. That she had been led by I knew not what suspicions into some strange error that she had got but a misshapen account of the duel between her husband and myself, was, of course, plain to me. But since her former kindliness and courtesy had been part of a deliberate and ordained plan for securing me within her power, since, in a word, she had cherished no favourable thoughts of me at any time, I deemed it idle to consider of the matter.

Moreover, the remoteness of these parts made my helplessness yet more bitter and overpowering; though, indeed, I was not like to forget my helplessness in any case, for the cords about my ankles and wrists bit into my flesh like coils of hot wire. "A sequestered nook of the world," so I remembered, had Ilga called this corner of the Tyrol, and for a second time that night my thoughts went back to my own distant valley. I saw it pleasant with the domestic serenity which a man discovers nowhere but in his native landscape.

And to crown, as it were, my loneliness, now and again a few stray notes of music or a noise of laughter would drift through the c.h.i.n.ks into the pitch-dark hut, and tell of the lighted Hall and of Ilga, now, maybe, dancing among her guests.

'Twas a little short of eleven when she returned to the pavilion. I am able to fix the time from an incident which occurred shortly afterwards. At first, the steps falling light as they approached, I bethought me my visitor was either Otto or Groder coming stealthily upon his toes to complete his work with me; for I never expected to look upon her face again.

She carried no light with her, and paused on the sill of the door, her slight figure outlined against the twilight. She bent her head forward, peering into the gloom of the room, but she said no word; neither did I address her. So she stood for a little, and then, stepping again outside, she unbarred and opened the shutters of the window. Returning, she latched the door, locked it from within, and, fetching the stool from the corner, sat her down quietly before me.

The moon, which had previously shone into the room almost in a level bar, now slanted its beams, so that the Countess was bathed in them from head to foot, while I, being nearer to the window, lay half in shadow, half on the edge of the light.

She sat with her chin propped upon her hands, and her eyes steadily fixed upon mine, but she betrayed no resentment in her looks nor, indeed, feeling of any kind. Then, in a low, absent voice, she began to croon over to herself that odd, wailing elegy which I had once heard her sing in London. The tune had often haunted me since that day from its native melancholy, but now, as Ilga sang it in the moonlight, her eyes very big and dark, and fastened quietly upon mine, it gained a weird and eerie quality from her manner, and I felt my flesh begin to creep.

I stirred uneasily upon the settle, and Ilga stopped. I must think she mistook the reason of my restlessness, for a slow smile came upon her face, and, reaching out a hand, she tried the knots wherewith I was bound.

"It may well be," she suggested, "that you are better inclined to speak the truth, since now you know to what falsehood has brought you."

"Madame," I replied wearily, "I know not what you believe nor what you would have me say. It matters little to me, nor can I see, since you have reached the end for which you worked, that it need greatly concern you. This only I know, that I have already told you the truth."

"And the miniature you left behind you?" she asked, with an ironic smile. "Am I to understand it has no bearing on the duel?"

"Nay, madame," said I; "'tis the key to the cause of our encounter."

"Ah!" she interrupted, with a satisfaction which I did not comprehend.

"You have drawn some profit from the reflection of these last hours."

"For," I continued, "it contained the likeness of my friend, Sir Julian Harnwood, as, indeed, Otto must needs have told you. 'Twas in his cause that I came to Lukstein."

"'Twas the likeness of a woman," she replied patiently.

I stared at her in amazement.

"Of a woman!" I exclaimed.

She laughed with a quiet scorn.

"Of a woman," she repeated. "I showed it you in my apartments at London."

"The portrait of Lady Tracy? It is impossible!" I cried, starting up.

"Why, Marston gave it you. You told me so."

"Oh, is there no end to it?" She burst out into sudden pa.s.sion, beating her hands together as though to enforce her words. "Is there no end to it? I never told you so. 'Twas you who pretended that. You pretended you believed it, and like a weak fool, I let your cunning deceive me. I was not sure then that you had killed the Count, and I believed you had never seen the likeness till that day. But now I know. You own you left the miniature behind you."

"But the case was locked," I said, "and I had not the key."

"I know not that."

I could have informed her who had possessed the key, but refrained, bethinking me that the knowledge might only add to her distress and yet do no real service to me.

"And so," I observed instead, "all your anxiety that I should not tax Marston with the giving of it was on your own account, and not at all on mine."

She was taken aback by the unexpected rejoinder. But to me 'twas no more than a corollary of my original thought that the Countess had been playing me like a silly fish during the entire period of our acquaintance.

"I showed you the portrait as a test," she said hurriedly. "I believed you guiltless, and I knew Mr. Marston and yourself had little liking for each other. Any pretext would have served you for a quarrel.

Besides--besides----"

"Besides," I took her up, "you allowed me to believe that Marston had given you the miniature, and had I spoken of the matter to him I should have discovered you were playing me false."

"But you knew," she cried, whipping herself to anger, as it seemed to me, to make up for having given ground. "You knew how the miniature came into my hands. All the while you knew it, and you talk of my playing you false!"